The first Scientology lecture I attended was given by Robert Vaughan Young, a Ph.D. who had been teaching at U.C. Davis. Vaughan, as he was known, eventually became a prominent figure in Scientology scandals when he had a falling out of rather huge proportions with the Church. I was, however, meeting him two decades before all of that happened. If you want, you can read all about his bitterness on the internet as he has written prolifically about his experiences in Scientology. Some of his bitterness is misplaced and some of it is not. In the end, before he died of prostate cancer, his friends said that he was in relative peace with regard to the subject.
My most poignant memory from that first lecture with Vaughan was this very strange guy in the audience. He had bug-eyes and a very round face and wore long hair.
Dressed in overalls, he did not really look like a hippie but more like the crazy or wayward son of a farmer who liked the hippie look. He was not the kind of person you would want to hang out with. When the question and answer period came, this person got a gleam in his eye and said that he heard that the real truth about L. Ron
Hubbard was that he came from outer space and that he was here to change the earth or something. Although this character was extremely comical in some regard, I remember thinking he was more “fucking nuts” than anything else.
Vaughan replied that Ron was born in Montana and that he was a regular human being. Actually, Vaughan was wrong about Montana. Ron was born in Nebraska.
Although it is not a very important point at all, I always thought it was odd that Vaughan said Ron was born in Montana and not Nebraska. At the time, I had no idea who Ron was, let alone the place of his birth, but I never forgot what Vaughan said. He seemed to be careless with his facts. Maybe the guy in the overalls is to blame. He created a definite impression on all of us.
After the lecture, I asked Vaughan a few questions, but he would not answer any of them. He just said to read the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health.
Although it was not stated so harshly, Scientology policy states that potential parishioners are not really worth pursuing or bothering with unless they can read that book.
If one cannot read or get through that book (at least the first two books within that book), they are not going to be interested enough to even participate in the subject. It is supposed to be a dividing line. Of course, this policy was
not always followed. Disreputable people would sometimes tell people all sorts of strange things with false promises. This was never supposed to occur, but human beings have a great way of mucking things up.
Scientologists were never an exception. As in any group, there are good and bad people.
I took Vaughan’s advice and read the book. The book was all about the theory of an engram, a moment of pain and unconsciousness that shuts down the thinking or analytical part of the mind. Further, it proposed the theory of a Reactive Mind, a part of the mind that operates in a simple stimulus-response fashion. The Reactive Mind is very suitable when it comes to running from a dangerous animal or fire. But, when it is influenced by painful or unconscious moments from the past, it takes on a life of its own and can seriously muck up the analytical functioning of the normal mind.
As a result of reading the book, my entire interest at that point was only in the subject of Dianetics. I would soon learn that Dianetics and Scientology, at least in the mind of Scientologists, were two distinctly different subjects.
Dianetics meant “through the mind” and was meant to deal with any psychosomatic illnesses or discomforts.
Scientology, on the other hand, dealt with the spiritual aspects of being. Spirituality was a foreign subject to me
and of minimal interest. I was, however, readily cognizant that there were hidden areas in the human mind, and I was as curious as hell as to what might be there lurking in my own mind. Dianetics offered a potential answer. This was the first system of theories that I had ever heard of that even approached the subject, let alone offered a system of techniques for getting at the occluded portions of the human mind. Although this could be called occultism because it deals with occluded portions of the human mind, there were no particular occult appearances to the organization itself. There were, however, plenty of hippies and beatnik types, but this was standard fare for this particular town in Northern California at that particular time period.
As I was interested in learning more about Dianetics and receiving their counseling procedures to get at the hidden portions of the mind, I went back to the Scientology center on Olive Drive in Davis and told them I had read the book. I was then told that if I was really interested in pursuing this subject, I should take their introductory Communications Course. It was only fifty dollars then, and I believe it is still fifty dollars to this day. There was no high pressure sales or anything. It was just, “If you’re really interested, take this course. Otherwise, don’t bother.”
Getting onto this course took me no time at all. My mother was happy to give me the fifty bucks for the course. Tor was interested in taking the course, too, but he could not come up with the fifty bucks. As the months rolled by, I found this quite significant. He could easily come up with the money to pay for his burgeoning drug habit, but he could not come up with a lousy fifty dollars which would allegedly improve himself.
The Communications Course was very simplistic. It consisted of learning the basic theory of communication which is basically nothing more than two terminals or viewpoints relaying information back and forth to each other, the proviso being that each actually receives, properly duplicates, and acknowledges that the ideas were actually heard and received. There were many drills dedicated to bringing this home to the student. There was no coercion involved, but one had to exert a considerable amount of discipline in order to break one’s own self-ingrained habits with regard to communication. Many of you might think that you or the world have no problems with communication. After all, everybody does it, and there is now all kinds of technology to communicate with;
however, a true examination will reveal that most of the world operates at a very low level of communication.
Governments across the world are notorious for their inability to communicate with common citizens and
address routine concerns. Common courtesy is sometimes the exception rather than the norm.
The most fun aspect of the course was that the supervisors or fellow students would try to make you laugh or break your concentration. This was highly entertaining, and I laughed probably harder and longer than I had ever laughed in my entire life. Although this was not the purpose of the course, it was an absurd and noted highlight.
One of the purposes behind these drills was to enable a counselor or auditor (in Scientology, an auditor is one who asks questions and listens in order to resolve situations) to listen to another without reacting. If a person tells you something horrendous or highly embarrassing about themselves, you had better not laugh or react in any way if you are honestly seeking to help them. The slightest reaction can not only turn them away from wanting to deal with you, it can turn them off subconsciously.
Many people did the Communications Course, enjoyed it and never moved a further step into Scientology. Most everyone I knew who did the course found it tremendously useful in dealing with the ordinary communications in every day life. In my personal life, I noticed that I could
all of a sudden get responses out of people that I would not have gotten before. My ability to communicate in situations improved dramatically.
The Communication Course in Scientology was not only designed to teach you to communicate, but it was loaded with references to Scientology and was meant to give you an appreciation of the subject. That was all well and fine I suppose. I do not remember any sales pressure of any kind although you did receive a lot of attention. One was there to learn a subject. The supervisors were primarily there to ensure you understood the communication drills.
If opportunities came up when you had questions, they were also quick to help you with answers with regard to Scientology or life in general. Still, this all seemed to be getting in the way of where I wanted to go: getting at those occluded or hidden aspects of the mind. Although I did not appreciate it at the time, this course system was set up to prepare me for such.
Chapter 8 — Freakout
Before I go any further with this narrative, I want to clarify a very important point with regard to the subject matter being covered because it can make people react quite viscerally as well as irrationally. If you are going to penetrate hidden layers of consciousness, like I was hoping to do, it stands to reason that there is a censor or something that prevented you from finding out about them in the first place. Therefore, whatever method is successful in such an endeavour is going to be subject to a visceral reaction by reason of the “gray matter” that is working for the censor. It does not matter whether it is Scientology or something else.
Before I address that point any further, however, I would like to refer you to some comments made by Joseph Campbell, the late professor who is best known for his extremely popular video series where he is interviewed by Bill Moyer on the subjects of mythology and religion.
In one of these interviews, Campbell stated how the divine manifestation we know as God has often been depicted as a monster force which wrecks all harmony and common standards of ethics. This is not only true in mythology but can be read in the Holy Bible when God manifests the flood as well as many other hardships for
man. Campbell does not say that this is the only manifestation of God but that it is one that humans have had to contend with since the beginning of Western history.
If we really want to understand this monster force, it behooves us all to study a little bit about the very nature of monsters or at least their destructive aspect. While I do not intend to write about monsters per se in this particular book, it is very important to address certain trigger words and issues which people have often interpreted to either be or act as monsters. By “trigger,” I am referring to that which makes people react viscerally. This applies not only to the destructive aspect of God or gods but to anything which might compromise the censorship to the hidden or unfulfilled aspects of your consciousness. It is for this reason alone that the words “Dianetics,”
“Scientology,” and “L. Ron Hubbard” can cause such agita. Whether or not they are fraudulent in themselves is beside the point. Part of the reaction to these words is caused by the fact that they represent that which could destroy the censor. There is also, quite genuinely, a
“monster aspect” to these words as numerous people have quite passionately and vehemently complained that they have utterly destroyed people’s lives.
While his adherents might either bristle or laugh at the
suggestion of Hubbard being a monster, there is no question that he has been portrayed as such by various critics and media sources. L. Ron Hubbard is a name which excites more controversy and opinions than most world leaders. While I cannot personally vouch for the various claims that Hubbard or Scientology have ruined lives, nor is it my role to engage in specific judgements here, we can all easily agree on one thing. These people and/or the media sources who cite such travesties have perceived a destructive or monster force which ruined them of someone else. In public relations, perception is everything. More importantly, we should be more concerned with the actual “monster force” than with what people say about it. If victims understood or correctly perceived this monster force in the first place, it is unlikely that they would have been too adversely affected or perplexed by it.
Personally, I can relate to all of this quite well because my writing career and reputation has been defined by writing about such trigger words and experiences that undermine the censorship to the hidden aspects of consciousness.
This encompasses the Montauk Project and mind control as well as a host of controversial figures that not only includes Hubbard but also Preston Nichols, Aleister Crowley, Jack Parsons, and Marjorie Cameron. All of them have been considered “monster forces” in their own
right.
In the case of Preston Nichols, his theories and experiences with regard to time phenomena and mind control have either enlightened, amazed, perplexed or offended anyone who has read them. In spite of being one of the more gifted and intelligent people in the military industrial complex, more than a few have referred to him as crazy. The press, however, has primarily ignored him.
For the better part of a century, Aleister Crowley has been fanatically described as the wickedest man in the world.
Although his most ardent critics will usually concede that he possessed an aptitude for scholarship and occult knowledge, most authors never miss the opportunity to point out that, as an individual, Crowley was prone to petty quarrels or invoking terror, curses, or ill will upon his adversaries. They often refer to him as a satanist, but he is not often, if ever, particularly labeled as insane.
Jack Parsons, who is probably the most idealized and enigmatic of these characters, is generally portrayed as a dark and brooding figure by the popular press. The fact that he was a brilliant rocket scientist who could actually make things work is almost overlooked in comparison to the misperception that he was overwhelmed by dark
forces which consumed him or that he succumbed to
“devil worship.” Despite these portrayals, he is seldom referred to as being insane.
As the forerunner of (and arguably being the reason for) the modern goddess movement, Marjorie Cameron was often portrayed as a witch or suffered from sensationalized reporting which sought to label her as the
“Whore of Babalon.” Although she was often ostracized, she tended to thrive on this belligerent recognition of herself and her life’s artistic statement. She was, however, never really attacked as being “insane.”
When we come to the proposition of L. Ron Hubbard, the derisive appellations take on an intensity that is rather unmatched with regard to modern media. We find that the implication and assertion of insanity goes off the meter dial. In fact, if you do a search on the internet, you will find that Hubbard’s critics are far more zealous than all of the aforementioned people put together — by far. In fact, I dare you to find anyone on this earth who has been so feverishly and passionately criticized in a public forum.
Not even Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein have been so zealously sought after in terms of criticism. Part of the reason for this is that Americans have already made up their mind about these individuals and the jury is no longer out on them. Although Hubbard has long since
passed away, there is still a considerable amount to be won or lost with regard to his legacy and ultimate judgment. The reason for this is that he left behind a very formidable and powerful movement which is known as Scientology.
Scientology, like any organized religion, is concerned with a battle for men’s souls. As that battle concerns your soul, or at least the people in your environment, it might behoove you to learn about it from all angular perspectives. That includes both the positive and the negative. After reading much of what has been said about Hubbard on the internet, I have never seen anyone portrayed as such a complete lunatic. In fact, his critics and non-supporters have created a character that defies any reasonable probability. On the other hand, his supporters and enthusiasts also portray somebody who defies any reasonable probability. Although it would take an encyclopedic volume to make a learned and instructive treatise that would add appropriate relevance to all of the commentaries made about him, that is a worthless endeavor. As far as helping you understand L. Ron Hubbard and who he actually was, I have two characteristics which give me an extreme advantage over typical authors or journalists. First, I actually experienced L. Ron Hubbard. This is something akin to the difference between experiencing warfare on the front line and
reading about it in a magazine. Secondly, I do not suffer from any bitterness nor am I in denial about any of his actual or perceived personal shortcomings.
Whether or not Hubbard was a lunatic, there is no question that he has been perceived as such and everyone is entitled to their perceptions. Once again, perception is everything.
But, whether or not he was a lunatic, everyone can readily agree that he was an extremely powerful man who built a vast empire and commanded attention in a rather unprecedented manner.
As I want to be sympathetic to all possible viewpoints, I do not feel that it behooves me to convince you that he was either a lunatic or was not one. In either case though, a stern judgment does not really enable one to perceive the whole essence of who this man was. Instead, I would like to focus your attention on how this man attracted millions of followers and why he is the object of much adulation to this very day. Even the densest of his critics would readily admit that he offered a “psychic candy” to lure others away from an ordinary life and into the world of Scientology. For every person who ever entered Scientology, and there have been millions of them, there is a different story to tell. Most authors on this subject tend to have a scatological approach towards this subject.
There is plenty of waste matter to go around and while it